Haunted House 50: Secrets of the House

[aldersprig]

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
🌳

Washing the House with Jasper was surprisingly fun. It was also hard work, because the House had years of embedded grime in her shingles. “Did you somehow roll in the mud?” Mélanie found herself accusing the house at one point. “And… in a pine tree?”

The House bumped one set of shutters in her direction.

“I can’t tell if that’s a yes or a no,” Mélanie admitted. “But I need some sort of brush that can get up here under the shutters. Maybe a butter knife, actually. “

Jasper frowned at the scrub brush he was holding. “I could–“

A window opened and a butter knife slid out into Mélanie’s hand.

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Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.

Comments

[kelkyag]

No, that’s an Ellehemaei thing. Haunted houses can’t normally create stuff out of thin air. Can they?

I've been assuming that the House is fae, like the girl who Changed into a cottage (and later grew into a house and figured out how to pick up her yard and move it with her, IIRC), and her ancestor the castle. She hasn't seemed inclined to explain herself much thus far, though, and I can hardly blame her. She has some good defences but being that large and slow-moving still makes her vulnerable. Ooooh ... and if mostly people don't know she can talk at all, they're unlikely to try to force her to promise things or belong to someone. Shines a different light on not wanting to talk.

(I was also vaguely assuming, from the previous chapter, that growing was mostly in fits and starts because a half-grown porch or something would be very odd indeed, but mostly one way rather than freely reconfigurable. That could be wildly wrong.)

[aldersprig]

*whispers* She is a fae.

Melanie just doesn't know it yet. Also... somewhat reconfigurable, with effort.